Dream Vacation Surprise Baby Page 2

  Which bit to sketch first? That dashing profile? The whorl of his ear? His foot—the one that had lost a toe when some crazy had chopped it off with a hammer?

  The hand.

  It was his fault she’d always had a thing for hands. Strong hands. With veins and scars and strength and a story.

  Aubrey stared at the David’s hand for another few seconds before putting pencil to paper. With a sweep of charcoal across the page, there was no going back.

  Drawing had always been her bliss. Sketching with a stick in the dirt in their hot, dry inner Sydney backyard, using her toe to create sand animals on their biannual trips to the beach. It had been a way to escape into her head when she’d needed time out from her boisterous family of six.

  First money she’d made had been as a precocious eight-year-old, setting herself up on the sidewalk outside her family’s Sydney auto shop, Prestige Panel and Paint, selling pictures she’d drawn of the vintage cars inside. She’d put the money in a tin she’d marked Plane Ride.

  Resolute, even then, to see the world.

  Her dream had seemed ill-starred, when, two years earlier, while finally on the trip she’d saved for her entire life, just after the Copenhagen festival, she’d been cut down by a mysterious infection that doctors had told her family would most certainly be the end of her.

  Realising her pencil had stopped moving, Aubrey blinked to clear her eyes, then tipped her dad’s old fedora further back on her head and smudged a little graphite shadow into a groove of David’s wrist with her thumb.

  It hadn’t been the end of her. She’d pulled through. After two long years of obstinate recuperation, she was back. Only now she carried with her one slightly damaged heart.

  She looked up at the David—the David, right there in front of her—and thanked whatever gods out there might have helped pull her through. Asking them if they could stick around, keep an eye on her, make sure nothing happened to force her home too soon this time.

  Not that she believed it would. This time things seemed fortuitous, sprinkled as they were with Vivian Ascot’s particular brand of magical fairy dust. The timing could not have been more perfect, coming as it had right on top of the most recent bombshell from Aubrey’s doctors.

  When Viv had stated—tongue in cheek, Aubrey was almost sure—that the only provisos were that she was not to deny herself a thing, that she luxuriate and spoil herself rotten, and that she start her trip in Florence, staying in a hotel Viv herself owned, what choice had she had but to accept?

  Dante. Machiavelli. Da Vinci. Michelangelo. Galileo. Of the greats, only a small number were born in Florence or spent time there. If this trip was to be Aubrey’s renaissance, her chance to envision her life beyond her condition, and all it had taken from her, this was the city to do it.

  “I don’t know about you,” a deep, male voice said from behind her, “but he’s always bigger than I think he’ll be.”

  Aubrey flinched and the charcoal slipped, leaving a bold black streak right across the page.

  “Well, poo,” she said.

  “Whoa, sorry,” the voice said. Australian, she realised. How funny was that?

  Aubrey shrugged. Mishaps were a part of the story. They did not define it. “No worries. It’s hardly a Rembrandt.”

  Shadow fell over her as the owner of the voice moved in, blocking the light pouring into the room from the huge glass dome above as he looked over her shoulder. “No,” he said. “But it’s damn good.”

  Aubrey held onto her hat and turned. Looked up. And...hot damn.

  Talk about bigger than you expected! It was difficult not to gawp. For the man was tall. Built. Dark chocolate hair raked into devastatingly sexy spikes. Sunglasses hooked into the collar of his pale grey T-shirt that did little to hide the shape beneath. The man behind the voice was handsome enough to have her blush, just a little, as big, handsome guys always had.

  “Thanks,” she said with a quick smile, shoving her stuff back in her vintage backpack, yanking the frayed leather strap around the opening to tighten it up. She slung it over her shoulder and got back to her feet as gracefully as possible, which in short overalls and floppy sandals wasn’t graceful at all.

  “You sketch the big guy a lot?” asked Mr Tall Dark and Aussie, his gaze roaming around the big room.

  He’d moved away again. Not crowding her. Handsome and thoughtful, she thought. Nice. Nice and big and beautiful, with a nose Michelangelo would have wept over, a hard jawline, and lips she’d kill to sketch.

  “First time,” she said, blinking ten to the dozen when his gaze moved back her way. “But it won’t be the last, I hope. He’s magnificent. Bucket-list stuff, right there.”

  “Hmm,” the stranger hummed. The deep sound seeming to reverberate through Aubrey’s chest.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “Me? No. He’s...fine.”

  Aubrey tried not to sputter. “Fine? He’s perfection.”

  That earned her a raised eyebrow. If anything, it made the stranger even more ridiculously gorgeous. Her toes curled into her sandals.

  “Marble’s not my medium,” he said, his gaze on the statue looming anciently over them.

  “What is?”

  “Wood.”

  At that, Aubrey tried not to look at David’s bits. She really did. But with the stranger’s declaration bouncing about inside her head, and David’s bits staring back at her three times normal size... She was only human.

  “Intimidated?” she asked, her cheeks tugging into a smile.

  There was a moment, a beat that felt like a thud deep inside her chest, before his eyes narrowed. Then he lifted his chin and said, “Nah.”

  “Ha!”

  At her bark of laughter, he swung his eyes her way. And the last of her breath left her lungs in a whoosh. His eyes were ridiculous. Deep blue, and dark and mysterious, like a river at night. Eyes a girl could drown in.

  She’d use a well-sharpened pencil if she sketched him. Or a fine black pen. She’d need to get the sweep of each individual eyelash just right. The defined angle of his jaw. The chiselled curve of that seriously enticing mouth.

  And those eyes, the flash of blue that might well turn a piercing aquamarine out in the sunshine, the thought of studying them enough to do them justice, made her feel light in the head.

  In accepting Viv’s generous gift, Aubrey had made herself a promise. To use this amazing opportunity to find a new normal, now that the future she’d always believed would be hers could not be.

  No time like the present to begin.

  She held out a hand to the most beautiful—flesh and blood—man she had ever seen and said, “Aubrey Trusedale. Of Sydney.”

  A beat later, he took it. Said, “Malone. Sean Malone.” No qualification as to where he’d hailed from. Melbourne, she thought, taking in the cut of his clothes. The effortless style. Definitely Melbourne.

  Taking a pause seemed to be a thing for him. A moment in which to make a decision. Find the most famous statue of a naked man in the world intimidating, or not. Talk to the strange girl, or not.

  When the heat from Sean Malone’s hand spread into hers, the unexpected calluses on the pads of his palms rubbing against the matching ones on hers, she smiled. And meant it.

  “I’m very glad to have met you, Malone.”

  * * *

  A half-hour later, Sean found himself unsure as to how he’d ended up in the Piazza Della Signoria having a coffee with a stranger he’d picked up along the way.

  Or had she picked him up?

  One of them had mentioned being starving, which, on reflection, didn’t sound like him.

  So here he was, sweltering beneath a bright yellow sun umbrella, at a rickety wrought-iron table, palming a cooling espresso, and packed in like a sardine with a zillion other sun-baskers doing the same.

  While she—the stranger, Aubrey Trusedale of Sydney—was leaning over the back of her chair, chatting with the South African couple at the next table about their travels—and jobs, and families, and favourite books—leaving Sean to wait, and muse, and remember.

  None of which he was keen to do.

  But first... “Aubrey.”

  She held up a staying finger. “Just a sec.”

  Sean held out a hand in supplication, but nobody was paying him any heed.

  So, he leaned around the table and grabbed the woman’s backpack. It was wide open. Without even trying to see inside he spotted paper, pens, wallet, sunglasses, what looked like spare clothes in a Ziploc bag, and a lacy G-string sitting right on top.

  He pulled the strap that scrunched the bag closed—mostly, the thing was built for pilfering—before squeezing the bag between the table leg and his own.

  And waited. And mused. And remembered.

  Having lived in Florence near on five years now he’d visited the David more than once, but playing tourist had not been how he’d planned to start his day.

  The email. The email had knocked him off course.

  Once his team had arrived at the workshop he’d built beneath his place in the hills overlooking the city, the sounds of saws and music spilling through the open windows, he’d walked out of the front door. Leaving his dog at the villa, for the day was far too hot to lug Elwood down the hill.

  The height of summer had descended over Florence, bringing with it the usual humidity and plague of tourists, so by the time he’d hit the city his head was no clearer. The answer to the email still unformed.

  So he’d kept walking. Meandering the back streets; lean, shadowed caverns between the old stone buildings it was easy to get lost in. It was what he’d loved most about the city. He’d lost himself there years ago.

  And he’d found himself outside the Galleria dell’Accademia—its unassuming wooden door tucked into the side of an unending row of beige buildings—as the sun had truly begun to burn.

  Taking a break from the heat, he’d gone in. Made his way to the most famous artefact in the place, and found her sitting there—Aubrey Trusedale of Sydney—cross-legged, in the middle of the gallery floor.

  Short overalls over a white T-shirt covered in faces of black cats, one strap half falling off her shoulder. Sandals only just clinging to her feet. Her back to the room. Her backpack on the floor beside her, wide open.

  He could have moved on. Kept walking. Made his way back to the air-conditioned bliss of his city showroom. Answered the email and moved on with his life.

  But something about the way her shoe had been half falling off, and her hat was too big for her head, had made him stop.

  Florence was a great city, but like any city—any place—bad things could happen. And something about her screamed trouble magnet.

  Not that he had a knight-in-shining-armour complex. He intentionally kept out of other people’s business and appreciated them doing the same for him. But the bag—he had to say something. Only when he’d moved in did he notice she was sketching.

  Her fingers had gripped so tight to a charcoal pencil her knuckles had gone white, and yet the sweep of movement over the paper—it had been arresting. Her style loose and easy. The lines bold yet graceful.

  She was very good.

  He’d have recognised the subject anywhere. The David’s right hand. Famously larger than it ought to have been. Supposedly a nod to the man’s inner strength. Though it messed with Sean’s architectural brain.

  A bespoke furniture designer by trade, he sketched all the time. Mostly on grid paper—straight lines and precise curves. Shapes he could build. Shapes that were comfortable to the eye. And the backside. Shapes that had people on wait lists for his designs.

  Yet he had none of her light hand. None of her sense of freedom. Her effortless speed. And he’d found himself entranced.

  He’d watched her pencil fly over the page for a full minute before he’d heard a voice. Surprised to find it was his own.

  Then she’d looked up at him. All big brown Bambi eyes. Eyes full of spark. Eyes that had taken one look at him and warmed all over. Clear that she’d liked what she’d seen, and that she’d had no ability—or, perhaps, intention—of hiding it.

  Only then had come the accent. Australian.

  Of all the days...

  For the email that had sent him walking had been from back home. Hidden, innocently, between the usual—invitations to gallery openings, to guest lecture at tech schools and museums, to present a TED talk, even a nudge to see if he might be keen to co-host a renovation show on British TV.

  The email was a commission enquiry for a custom memorabilia shelving unit for a pre-eminent Australian Rules Football club.

  It wasn’t his usual thing. His custom pieces tended to be more specialised. Twelve-foot doors. Monolithic tables. In the past year he’d been called on to build a throne. His sister used to call this sideline of his vocation Shock and Awe.

  Sean blinked at the vision of his sister’s face, blaming the damn email anew. Then downed the last of his coffee, holding onto the bitter aftertaste.

  The email had been sent by a friend of his father.

  His father whom he hadn’t seen in half a decade. Hadn’t spoken to in, what, a year? More? Was it a coincidence? Or could it be his old man’s way of reaching out?

  Laughter brought him back to the now.

  A waiter had joined in the conversation on the other side of the table. Telling a story, in broken English, that had Aubrey and her new friends in stitches. The young man held a menu in what looked to be a most uncomfortable position, high above his head so that it stopped a shard of sunlight between the umbrella edges from hitting Aubrey in the face.

  Mid smile, she reached for her bag. Found it missing. She spun on her chair, Bambi eyes wide.

  Sean lifted the bag and passed it over the table.

  And her eyes met his. Direct. Warm. Zesty. Filled with laughter and suggestion and temptation. Heat swept over him—inevitable and true. Heat that had nothing to do with the bite of the summer’s day.

  She fixed the strap of her overalls that had slipped off one shoulder. Mouthed, Thank you. Then ferreted around inside the bag till she grabbed what looked like a mint and tossed it back with the last of her coffee.

  She paused mid swallow as she caught his eye again; this time her expression was far more guarded. She ran a finger over her lips and said, “Special vitamins.”

  He nodded. Waited for her to turn back to her new friends. And breathed out.

  That was how he’d ended up here.

  Back in the gallery, her eyes on his, head cocked, her hat slipping off her head to reveal short, shaggy auburn waves. Freckles on a fine nose. Dark smudges beneath those warm, inviting eyes. Lips that might seem too wide for such a delicate face, unless a person had seen them smile.

  The squeeze of her hand reminding him he hadn’t let her go.

  “Is it just me,” she’d said, “or do you also feel the urge to jump over that little fence and touch the big guy?”

  After a moment Sean had shaken his head.

  “It’s like a current running under my skin. You really don’t feel it too?”

  He’d felt something. Concern, he’d told himself, at the fact her backpack now slowly eased open as she jumped from foot to foot, energised by that current under her skin.

  “Maybe I’m just hungry. Do you know a place?”

  And here they were.

  Across the table Aubrey said goodbye to her new friends and turned to him, her expression chagrined. “Sorry, they were about to leave for Rome this afternoon and hadn’t seen the David. I felt like it was my mission to convince them they must.”

  “Success?” he asked.

  “Success,” she said, those wide lips stretching into a huge smile. Then she dropped her hands to the table, leaned forward and said, “So, now what?”

  Her focus was sharp. Her smile encouraging. And for a second Sean felt as if the current she’d spoken about flickered deep inside him.

  He lifted his hands deliberately from the table and pushed back his chair. “Now I have work to do. What are your plans?”

  The edge of her smile dropped, but she rallied quickly. “You know what, I’m exhausted. I think I’ll head back to my hotel, get a good night’s sleep and start anew tomorrow.”

  “Lead the way.”

  “It wasn’t an invitation for you to join me there,” she said over her shoulder as they threaded their way through the tightly packed tables, the glint in her eyes making it clear she was joking.

  “I’m aware.”

  “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “My feelings are just fine.”

  “I mean, we’ve only just met. And you aren’t a fan of the David. And this is my first day in town so I really should keep my options open.”

  Hands in pockets, Sean followed. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  Sean would escort her back to whatever backpacker place she was booked into and on the way he’d give her some sage advice on the areas to avoid. Recommend she ditch the backpack and simplify what she needed to take out with her into the streets.

  And feel safe in the knowledge he’d done all he could to make sure a stranger he’d once met lived through the day.

  * * *

  Aubrey fell back on the lush king-sized bed in her opulent suite.

  Viv had made it very clear that she was not allowed to take a single cent back to Australia with her. That it all had to be spent. On luxury accommodation and gastronomical feasts, on gondola rides and hot-air balloons and helicopter flights and every sensory experience a person could possibly imagine.

  Aubrey closed her eyes, breathing in the singular scent—like snow and freesias and spun gold—and replayed every second of her first day in Florence.